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Free Resources for the "The Teacher's Toolbox"

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You can now order our book on Amazon.

The ELL Teacher's Toolbox: Hundreds of Practical Ideas to Support Your Students will be published in April, 2018.

Fifteen ways to adapt your textbook so your students aren't bored to death is the headline of a post appearing in my British Council blog. It's a short excerpt from the book.
Here Are All The Tweets From The First Week Of Sharing Excerpts From Our New Book, #ELLTeachersToolbox Here Are All The Tweets From The SECOND Week Of Sharing Excerpts From Our New Book, #ELLTeachersToolbox
Edutopia has published an excerpt from our new book, The ELL Teacher's Toolbox. Check it out Activating Prior Knowledge With English Language Learners.

Helping English-Learners End the School Year Strong is the title of the excerpt from our new book, The ELL Teacher's Toolbox. It appears in Education Week Teacher.
ALL Student Reproducibles From Our New Book Are Now Available To Everybody!
How to Engage ELLs in Literary Conversations is headline of another excerpt from our new book on teaching English Language Learners.

How to Use Oral Presentations to Help English Language Learners Succeed is the headline of the latest excerpt from our new book on teaching ELLs. It appears at KQED MindShift.
Video: Katie & I Share ELL Instructional Strategies
Carol Salva hosts THE podcast that English Language Learner teachers should be listening to, and she was kind enough to have me on as her guest. You can listen to the show here, as well as accessing a ton of other materials she has. One of the many reasons I like Carol's show so much is that she shares supplemental resources, as well as her reflections on the each show.

Culturally Responsive Teaching in the ELL Classroom is the headline of the book excerpt published by the Washington Post.
Highlights From First Two Weeks Of The Online Book Chat About Our New ELL Book
Four games for vocabulary development is an excerpt from our book, The ELL Teacher's Toolbox, and appears over at the British Council.

Rita Platt has written a very positive review of our new book, The Ell Teacher's Toolbox, over at Middleweb.

4 Fun Ways to Practice Short Oral Presentations is the headline of yet another excerpt from our book, The ELL Teacher's Toolbox. It appears in Middleweb.
Highlights From Last Two Weeks Of The Online Book Chat About Our New ELL Book JOIN A SUMMER VIRTUAL BOOK STUDY ON OUR BOOK, "THE ELL TEACHER'S TOOLBOX"
In the meantime, you can access tons of free resources from our - and my - previous books here.

What a great day of ESL training!! I just LOVE The ELLS Teacher's Toolbox!!! Thank you so much @KatyOOL for this resource!!! Can't wait to delve in! #ellteachertoolbox #eslstrategies #katyisdool pic.twitter.com/4oOzIFWflx

- Cari Bickham (@CariBickham) August 9, 2018

Look at these amazing anchor charts our #ESL teachers made to sum up chapters from #ELLTeachersToolbox by @Larryferlazzo. We love ❤️ this resource! #katyool @cjnguyen10 pic.twitter.com/TBBvMOnXCP

- 🌍 ναℓєηтιηα gσηzαℓєz (@ValentinaESL) August 9, 2018

We ran that round a bit differently than other rounds and did not do weekly questions. We had Ts choose their top 10 strategies and share what they learned, how the strategies were helpful, what they tweaked etc.

- Katie Toppel, Ed.D. (@Toppel_ELD) September 11, 2018

Loved this format given the structure of the book. Currently studying this book w/staff; departments are choosing top 5 & sharing out, reflecting, celebrating successes, etc.

- Alycia Owen (@alycia_owen) September 12, 2018

Using Photos In Speaking and Listening- "If Animals or Inanimate Objects Could Talk"
Sometimes speaking in front of a large group can be scary and speaking through other objects can help reduce anxiety and promote confidence.@Larryferlazzo #ELLTeachersToolbox #ESC1WebbookStudy pic.twitter.com/mORWjE5eT6

- A_GarzaRHHHS (@araseli_garza) May 6, 2019

Here's a wild Escape The Room feature created by teachers to support PD done through our book, The ELL Teacher's Toolbox.

From Rachel Sherwood: I am absolutely loving this book! I especially love the chapter on music and am already thinking through how I can utilize the songs from Hamilton! in my lessons next year! #NKYELBookClub pic.twitter.com/6VVvPWGUp7

- EL Program at NKCES (@NKCESELProgram) May 4, 2020

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Here Are Free Resources For "The ELL Teacher's Toolbox"

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You can now order our book on Amazon. The ELL Teacher's Toolbox: Hundreds of Practical Ideas to Support Your Students will be published in April, 2018. Fifteen ways to adapt your textbook so your students aren't bored to death is the headline of a post appearing in my British Council blog.

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Learning How to Use the Language Experience Approach

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Learning How to Use the Language Experience Approach

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The Best Resources for Learning How to Use the Language Experience Approach

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The Language Experience Approach describes a lesson, typically done with English Language Learners, in which the entire class does a common activity (playing a game, watching a video, anything), and then the teacher leads students in a process of writing about it. Those sentences can then be used for a myriad of other follow-up activities. It's particularly useful for mixed-level classes-everyone can participate in the activity, and then students can write sentences about it that are simple or complex depending on their language proficiency.

It's one of my favorite instructional strategies!

I'm going to share resources here divided into two sections. The first section includes links to explanations about how to apply the strategy in the classroom. The second includes links to different activities you can have students do, and then write about.
HOW TO APPLY LEA:
Eight Ways to Use Video With English-Language Learners is a piece we wrote in Edutopia.

The Language Experience Approach and Adult Learners is from CAELA.

The language experience approach is from The Victoria State Government.

Getting to the Rough Ground of Language and Literacy Learning Through the Language Experience Approach is from The Literacy Bug.
Language Experience Approach (LEA) Step by Step
My student teacher came up with what I think is a good "twist" on the Language Experience Approach. After doing the activity (watching a video, playing a game, taking a tour, etc.), when working with newcomers, start by asking them to create a class word bank. Sentence might be beyond them for now, but most can at least come up with English words they know that relate to the activity. Once the word bank is on the board, we can then give them hints about how they can construct sentences using them.
LEA ACTIVITIES: Google Lets You "Paint With Music" The Best Sources Of Ideas For Simple Classroom Science Experiments Origami & The Language Experience Approach GREAT RESOURCES FOR CREATING & GOING ON VIRTUAL FIELD TRIPS Fun Videos For ELLs The Best Ideas For Using Games In The ESL/EFL/ELL Classroom I Played A New Learning Game With My ELL Students & It Was A Great Fun Teaching & Formative Assessment Activity

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The Best Resources For Learning How To Use The Language Experience Approach

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The Language Experience Approach describes a lesson, typically done with English Language Learners, in which the entire class does a common activity (playing a game, watching a video, anythi...

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The Best Sites to Practice Speaking English

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The Best Sites to Practice Speaking English

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The Best Sites to Practice Speaking English

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This was one of the trickiest "The Best..." list for me to compile. As I was going through my favorites, and all of the great suggestions others contributed, I concluded that it might work best to really create two lists. The first list - this one - will highlight sites that actually have students recording their own voices in a number of different ways and post their speaking assignments online. The second list, which I'll publish later this month and will include a number of the sites that readers suggested, will focus on sites where students have to listen to spoken examples for developing better pronunciation skills.

That next list will be called "The Best Sites For Learning English Pronunciation."

It's sort of an artificial division, I know, and obviously in teaching and learning a second language speaking and listening are intertwined. In fact, students can use some of the sites on this list to practice what they hear on the sites in the next list. But I do think this separation works for the purpose of making these lists.

In order to make it on this list, a site had to be free, easy to use, and accessible to English Language Learners.

Here are my picks for The Best Sites To Practice Speaking English & Pronunciation:

Blabberize allows you to upload an image, have the mouth's image move in a comedic way, and then "speak" your voice. Students can use their own photos, or a famous person, cartoon character, etc. Blabberize can be used in the same way ESL/EFL teachers sometimes have students use puppets - students can feel more comfortable speaking when it's not really "them" doing the talking.

A Voki is a talking avatar students can design and easily post on a blog or website. Sue Waters has written excellent step-by-step instructions on how to post a Voki.

Voice Thread is well-known. Between the free unlimited account for educators, the ability to type text as well as record audio, the ability to grab images off the Web to reinforce understanding, and the great feature of being able to leave audio comments, I don't think anything beats it.

I'm adding Voxopop to this list. Formerly called Chinswing, it lets you easily create private voice "chatboards." Students can leave messages and respond to one another, or teachers can leave speaking assignments for students to complete. It's similar to Grapevine and to Vaestro Voice Channel.

I've posted in the past about how the ability to make easy screencasts - with audio- could be an excellent learning opportunity for English Language Learners (you might want to take a look at that post). The online tool Screencast-O-Matic works okay for this purpose, but seems a little complicated.

Vocaroo is a super easy way for students to record a message - of any length - and then place a link or an embed code on a student or teacher website. It's got to be one of the most simple ways for audio recording out there - no registration is required and you just click "record." (NOTE: Unfortunately, Vocaroo has recently announced that messages will be deleted after six months)

PodOmatic looks like an extraordinarily easy way to create a podcast. Sign-up and your class has your own channel - all you need is a computer microphone.

Chirbit is a new site. After registering (which is very easy - I love sites that don't require an email activation), you can very easily make a recording or use a text-to-speech feature to create audio. You're then given a unique url address for the recording. It's as simple as that. It has other capabilities, too, including responding to the audio message.

For students those without Internet access at home, here's a tool worth considering:

I recently received my invitation to join Google Voice, Google's new phone tool. You can read all about it at Lifehacker's guide. In terms of teaching, I could see it as an easy way for English Language Learners, particularly those with no Internet access, to practice speaking "homework." They can call my Google Voice number, leave a message, and I can then access both their audio and an automatically generated written transcript of what they said. I can then easily embed both on a classroom blog.

Audio Pal is a new tool that lets you easily record a message - either by using a phone, computer mike, or text-to-speech - and then add the embed code to your blog or website. Students can update it as often as they want, and get as many different ones that they want. It's pretty neat. No registration is necessary, and it's free.

A new site is called English Central. David Deubelbeiss has posted a very thorough post about the site titled English Central - Bringing "voice" and output to learning English. I'd strongly encourage you to read it - I don't feel any need to "reinvent the wheel." A quick description is that it's a free video site for English Language Learners, lets users listen to parts of the video, then lets them repeat what the characters says and compares it to the original. You get graded on how well you do. It has even more features, but you can read David's post or check out the site directly. The other great thing about it is that the videos are all appropriate for the classroom, unlike several other ESL video sites that have come online recently.

Audioboo lets you easily create what is basically a voice blog. After signing-up (which is quite easy), you can make recordings of up to five minutes in length. Not only can your messages appear together on one public page, but you can also choose to embed them. People can leave text comments on the messages, but one negative is that they are not moderated. However, you do have to be registered on the site in order to leave a comment. (I talk about a great and easy way to use Audioboo in This Seems Like A Pretty Easy Way To Practice Speaking....)

David Deubelbeiss, founder of EFL Classroom 2.0, has an excellent speaking activity he uses with his English Language Learner students. He calls it Pass The Paper, and also a helpful PowerPoint.

A teacher's guide to using audio and podcasting in the classroom is a nice overview of applications to use in the classroom, including videos. It was created by Kit Hard.

Little Bird Tales lets you easily make slideshows where you can add text and, more importantly for English Language Learners, provide an audio narration. On nice touch is that you can virtually paint/draw artwork in addition to uploading images (unfortunately, the site doesn't have the ability to grab photos off the web by url addresses). It's free to use, but I'm unclear on if there will be an eventual cost to use the site. It appears to have an upper limit on the number of shows you can produce.

You can read about SMILE and CLEAR at a previous post.

SoundCloud lets you very easily record an audio message - the first 120 minutes are free - and then you can post the link or embed it where you like. They've also just begun a new site called Take Questions, which TechCrunch calls a "Quora for audio." There, you can set-up your own page to take audio questions that you can then answer - in audio.

Spreaker seems like a pretty easy way to have your own Internet radio show.

Knovio might end up being one of the best Web 2.0 applications of the year. You upload a PowerPoint presentation, record a presentation with your microphone and webcam, and then it's done! It's free, and it is not open to the public yet, but I received an invitation about five seconds after I requested it.

Sock Puppets is a simple iPhone app that lets you easily record a student and upload it to YouTube. It can be used to briefly record a student speaking or reading in class, or even to have two or three students record a simple play (the free app allows thirty seconds of recording while for 99 cents you can upgrade to 90 seconds). One major advantage of using this for speaking practice is that it's the sock puppet that's actually speaking on the display, not the student. It looks like it could have potential. Thanks to techchef4u for the tip. NOTE: The upgraded version appears to be a bit buggy, so I'm only using the free app.

I've described some nice apps that let you add an audio recording to your photos and then them. enpixa is a new one that's very similar to the others. It's free, and you can add a thirty second recording.

You can never have too many of these kinds of sites, because you never know which ones will be blocked by school content filters.

I've previously posted several times about Edcanvass, and it's already on a number of "The Best..." lists. They've added another great feature - the ability to easily record up to five minutes of audio on any image or text you pin to a canvass, and you can pin many items on one canvass.

Shadow Puppet is a great iPhone/iPad app.

Tellagami is neat iPhone/iPad app that lets users quickly create virtual characters that can speak audio that's been recorded or use text-to-speech.

Here's an example:
Literably Is An Excellent Reading Site - If Used With Caution
Speaking Unplugged: 30 Activities for One-to-One Classes is a free downloadable eBook from Online TEFL Training.

Getting Your Students Talking is a good post from David Deubelbeiss.

Getting the whole class talking offers some good ideas. It's from The British Council

8 fun ways to practice presentations! is from The Business English Experience.

33 ways to speak better English - without taking classes is from British English Coach.

The British Council has a Part One and Part Two on "Reluctant Talkers."
I Learn Another Great Game For English Langage Learners From Jimmy Fallon
Chatterpix is an app for the iPhone/iPad that:
...can make anything talk - pets, friends, doodles, and more. Simply take any photo, draw a line to make a mouth, and record your voice. Then share your Pix with friends and family as silly greetings, playful messages, creative cards, or even fancy book reports. And best of all, it's FREE!
Voxer is an app that has potential for speaking practice with English Language Learners. Joe Mazza talks about various other educational uses for it at his blog. Here's video about it:

Interactive listening and speaking is from The British Council.

Using Pair and Group Work to Develop ELLs' Oral Language Skills is from Colorin Colorado.

Key Strategies for Developing Oral Language is from The Teaching Channel.
Web 2.0 Tools For Beginning English Language Learners - "Clyp.it"
Developing Speaking Skills in the Classroom is by Anthony Ash.

Here's a great list of speaking activities from The British Council.

The SpeakPipe voice recorder lets you easily record and save audio on the web. However, I'm not sure how long it saves your recording.

Voxer, the popular mobile recording app, can now be used directly on the Web via your computer. You can learn more about it at my previous post, I'm A Bit Late To The "Party," But Voxer Looks Useful.

12 Fun Speaking Games for Language Learners is from Edutopia.
"KnowMe" Has Immediately Become The Most Useful iPhone App In My Classroom The New Voice Typing Feature In Google Docs Is Great - I Wonder If ELLs Can Use It For Pronunciation Practice?
Personalised speaking is from The British Council.

Motivating speaking activities for lower levels is from The British Council.

Rachael Roberts - A favourite speaking activity is from The British Council.

Clarisketch looks like an excellent app for ELLs - you can draw and then record audio about it. Unfortunately, it's only available as an Android app. I hope they'll have an iPhone version soon.

Ask Answer Add - A Speaking Activity to Help Learners Maintain a Natural Conversation is a great strategy to get students talking.

Have you heard about Q Triple S A? An Amazing structured talk technique! Read about it here! https://t.co/4lvAYjhlD3 #talk #7steps #katyool pic.twitter.com/SKT72NYPbm

- valentina gonzalez (@ValentinaESL) February 4, 2017

Anchor is an easy tool for creating podcasts. You can read more about it at Richard Byrne's blog.
Here's A Plan For An Oral Skills Class Next Year - Please Help Make It Better!
S is for Speaking (1) is by Scott Thornbury. It offers some good student activity ideas.

3D Avatar Chat is an Android app that has potential as a tool for encouraging ELLs to practice speaking.

10-step guide to teaching effective conversation classes is from Teach English Spain.

ADDING A PARAMETER TO COLD CALL is by Doug Lemov. He shares a simple suggestion that could help ELLs, and all students, respond to teachers' questions better.

Adapting the alibi game - part 1 and Adapting the alibi game - part 2 is by Mike Astbury. It's more of an activity than a game.

4 TEFL Speaking Activities is from Engames.
One Of My Favorite - & Easiest - ELL Activities To Practice Speaking (Links & Recordings Included)
Three enjoyable smartphone activities to get learners talking is from The British Council.
Voicegram Is A Two-Way Audio Chatbot That's Useful For ELLs
Anchor seems like a very easy way to create podcasts. Here's a video about it:
Anchor Launches A Neat & Easy Way To Create Videos Highlighting Text
THE EDUBLOGGER'S GUIDE TO PODCASTING is a great post from The Edublogger.

Project Audio: Teaching Students How to Produce Their Own Podcasts is from The NY Times Learning Network.

Six Simple Ways to Get Your Students Talking is from CommonLit.

Have your students participate in the New York Times Learning Network First-Ever Student Podcast Contest.

Listening & Speaking Apps... #katybilingual pic.twitter.com/9XOAJhS8nt

- Carmen Nguyen (@cjnguyen10) February 7, 2018

SpeakPipe Adds New Landing Pages for Gathering Voice Recordings is from Richard Byrne. This could be an easy way for ELL students to leave spoken messages/assignments with their teachers.
"SYNTH" WILL IMMEDIATELY BECOME A FAVORITE WEB TOOL FOR EVERY TEACHER OF ELLS
Speaking Goal Cards are from Tan Huynh. You can read more about them here.

Online Voice Recorder does just that for free. I learned about it from Richard Byrne.

Cooperative Learning Can Promote ELLs' Academic Oral Language is the headline of the fifth post in my Ed Week series on ELLs and speaking.
FLEXCLIP LOOKS LIKE A GREAT VIDEO-EDITING TOOL FOR ELLS, ENGLISH-PROFICIENT STUDENTS & EVERYBODY ELSE
SPEAKING ACTIVITIES FOR ANY LANGUAGE CLASS is from English Teaching 101.

Quik - Quickly Create Audio Slideshow Videos is from Richard Byrne.

Motivating speaking activities for lower levels is from The British Council.
"SPEEK" LETS YOU EASILY RECORD ONLINE MESSAGES MY LATEST FAVORITE TECH TOOL FOR ELL STUDENTS TO PRACTICE SPEAKING "SPEECHLING" LOOKS LIKE A NICE SITE TO PRACTICE SPEAKING ENGLISH & OTHER LANGUAGES
Now You Can Use Vocaroo Without Flash is from Richard Byrne.

Reverb lets you easily record audio messages.

Teach Students to Build Up Ideas with Dialogue is by Jeff Zwiers.

On fluency and spontaneity: beyond "practice makes perfect" is from Gianfranco Conti.
REFLECTIVE SENTENCE FRAMES I USE TO OFTEN BEGIN MY ELL CLASS
Reverb Record is a new tool where you (and students) and easily record audio. I find these kinds of tools great for students to record something they wrote and add it to the written narrative on a class blog. I'm adding it to The Best Sites To Practice Speaking English. Thanks to Richard Byrne for the tip.
THE BEST SITES FOR ONLINE PRONUNCIATION FEEDBACK - DO YOU KNOW OTHERS? If you've found this post useful, you might want to consider subscribing to this blog for free.

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The Best Sites To Practice Speaking English

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This was one of the trickiest "The Best..." list for me to compile. As I was going through my favorites, and all of the great suggestions others contributed, I concluded that it might work best to really create two lists.

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Plan Interactive Fieldtrips

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Google Arts & Culture features content from over 2000 leading museums and archives who have partnered with the Google Cultural Institute to bring the world's treasures online.

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Teaching English Language Learners- Tips from the Classroom

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Teaching English Language Learners_Tips from teh Classroom.pdf

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Activating Prior Knowledge With English Language Learners

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English Language Learners

Students learn better when they first access what they already know-and this plays a big role in improving English language learners' academic literacy.

Educators and researchers, along with the Common Core authors, recognize that activating prior knowledge is a necessary step in accessing complex texts, whether in the form of written words, images, charts, or other text types. However, you can have too much of a good thing. As the , "Student background knowledge and experiences can illuminate the reading but should not replace attention to the text itself."

of K-W-L extend the chart to include columns for how students can find answers to their questions (online searches, personal interviews), what actions they might take after learning this new information (apply it, teach someone else, create something new), and/or what new questions they have based on what they've learned.

Providing simpler, preparatory texts in anticipation of a more complex reading task can be very helpful in building background knowledge and reading confidence. We often use the same text written in different Lexile levels. There are that make it easy to find or create these types of accessible texts. We're not suggesting that teachers simplify the complex text they're planning to use for close reading. Instead, teachers can provide simplified texts addressing topics or themes similar to the ones in the complex text as a way to build background knowledge.

Providing ELLs in advance with texts or videos in their home language can be another way to promote background knowledge. There are also many that can help with this kind of support.

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Activating Prior Knowledge With English Language Learners

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Students learn better when they first access what they already know-and this plays a big role in improving English language learners' academic literacy.

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4 Fun Ways to Practice Short Oral Presentations

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When our book The ELL Teacher's Toolbox was published this spring, the KQED MindShift blog published an excerpt titled "How to Use Oral Presentations to Help English Language Learners Succeed." You might find it helpful to read both posts. We think our strategies for ELL students can be adapted for any group of students working to improve speaking and listening skills. ~ Larry & Katie By Larry Ferlazzo and Katie Hull Sypnieski MiddleWeb asked to share our tips for short presentations that appear in the book right after this excerpt.
Most of the time , we have our ELL students make short oral presentations to a group or a partner because it is more practical, time efficient, and energizing for students. Here are some ways we have students practice making short presentations.

Speed Dating

Speed dating is a quick way for students to present their work to classmates while gaining speaking and listening practice. The teacher divides students into two rows facing each other (students can be standing or seated in desks).

One row is assigned as the movers. The teacher tells students the amount of time each partner will have to speak (this depends on the length of what they are sharing). When time is up, the teacher says "switch" and the mover row stands and moves one person to the right. This can be done several times so that students can present to multiple partners. (When the movers shift, one person in the stationary row will be without a partner. Have that person move to the other end of their row.)

Students can share their work in different ways (e.g., by sharing specific parts of a mini-poster or explaining something they've written). To boost listening skills, we often require students to ask a question after their partner presents (sometimes providing question and answer frames).

The previous paragraphs describe individual presentations. An easy way to do speed dating after students have worked in groups to prepare joint presentations is to assign half the groups to different parts or corners of the room (they become the stationary groups). Each remaining group (who will be the movers) is assigned to start with a stationary group partner. After each of the paired groups makes its joint presentation to the other, the mover group rotates and the process repeats itself.

Talking Points Presentations

This activity is a fun way for students to practice the presentation skill of speaking from their notes, not reading from them.

In this activity, the teacher first asks students to generate a quick list of topics they know a lot about (we often have students consult their heart maps or writing territories, which are discussed in Strategy 18 of our book, "Writer's Notebook").

Students then choose one topic to write about for several minutes-writing anything they know or that comes to mind. The teacher can model the same process on the document camera with a topic of his or her choice.

After writing, the teacher shows students how they can use this quickwrite to create several talking points or categories by looking for ideas that they can expand upon from their original writing. For example, if they wrote about Disneyland then the categories might include "my favorite rides," "my best memory at Disneyland," "my worst memory at Disneyland," or "my favorite Disney character."

Students then choose three of their categories and draw a quick picture representing each one. For the Disneyland example, Katie modeled drawing a picture of the submarine ride, a picture of her throwing up after going on Star Tours, and a sketch of Minnie Mouse!

The teacher then gives students a simple outline and models using it as an assist while speaking for a brief amount of time (no more than two minutes). See Figure 30.4: Talking Points Presentation Model and Outline for the teacher model and the outline we used for this activity.

The teacher reinforces the difference between reading the talking points (a don't) and speaking from the talking points (a do). Students are then given time to practice presenting using the outline as a guide-an opening, talking about each picture (using the talking points as cues), and a closing.

Students can give their presentations in small groups or in pairs (preferably with different students than they practiced with). Depending on their English proficiency level and the amount of practice they've had, students may or may not need to look at their outline. Listeners can be tasked with thinking of a relevant question to ask the speaker at the end of their presentation.

Top Five Presentations

This activity involves students working in groups to develop a top five list based on their interests and then preparing a short presentation to share with the class. We were introduced to the idea by ELT specialist Clare Lavery in her British Council post "Short Projects to Get Them Talking."

In our version of the activity, we put students in groups of three and give them a few minutes to come up with three to four topics they all find interesting. Sometimes students need a few ideas to get them started so we list some examples on the board (animals, sports, music, fashion, etc.).

Then we tell students to select one of the topics - preferably the one they know the most about - and to develop a top five list for this topic. Some examples might be top five animals, top five sports cars, top five musical artists, or top five movies. Students then receive Figure 30.5: Top Five Outline (depending on the proficiency level of students, the teacher can choose to include or not to include the sentence frames).

Students use the outline to develop their presentation ideas - to list their choices for the top five in their topic and to explain why they believe each one belongs in the top five.

We've found it is also helpful and enjoyable for students to create a visual aid to further communicate their points. In the past, students have created top five posters and five to seven slide PowerPoints. Students have also incorporated songs and movie clips into their presentations. We usually give groups a speaking time limit of three minutes with the requirement that each person in the group must speak during the presentation.

Students are then given time to practice their presentations. It might be necessary for the class to review our dos and don'ts for speaking and listening. The presentations can be done in front of the whole class or small groups can be paired up and present to each other. Listeners can be asked to provide feedback on a sticky note (writing something they liked about the presentation or a question they had).

PechaKucha Book Talks

PechaKucha ("chit-chat" in Japanese) is a popular presentation format in which 20 slides are shown for 20 seconds each (20 × 20) - about six and a half minutes. The slides, which usually contain one to two images and minimal text, are programmed to advance automatically as the speaker talks along with them.

In other words, each slide is used as a background or visual cue as the speakers progress through their presentation. Many language teachers use the PechaKucha presentation format because it can be easily modified. PK presentations have several advantages for ELLs-they are short, structured, highly visual, and informal.

Students can use the PechaKucha format to develop presentations on basically any topic. Teachers can adjust the time format if they want to give students more time on each slide or have students present fewer slides (e.g., 10 slides × 30 seconds each).
Five Slide PechaKucha (2:40)
EDITOR'S NOTE: You can find many, many examples of PechaKucha presentations at the official PechaKucha website, all presented in the standard 20×20 format. Students might enjoy seeing an example. This one, by an ornithologist with a sense of humor, is titled "What, If Anything, Is Big Bird". Best of all, the website features a small collection of presentations by kids from around the world, some in English. A good choice might be this one by 6th grader Kaden talking about the evolution of his drawings.

One variation of Pecha Kucha we've used in our classes was introduced to us by educator Anthony Schmidt in his helpful blog post "The Power of PechaKucha." His modified version has students create a short PechaKucha presentation on a book they've read. We often have students do book talks with a partner and this is a great way to give those a different spin. Here is the outline Anthony used with his intermediate students:

Slide 1-10 seconds: Introduction, title of book

Slide 2-60s: Plot, summary

Slide 3-30s: Favorite scene, character, part

Slide 4-60s: Evaluation and recommendation

Slide 5-0 s: Thank you

We provided our students with this outline. Students then created their slide presentations about their books. They selected online images based on a key idea for each slide (e.g., one student chose an image of the cover of his book for Slide 1 and an image of a gold medal for Slide 4).

Because we had beginners and intermediates, we gave students the option of using sentence frames to write their notes for each slide and posted them on the front board (e.g., "The title of my book is." "I recommend this book because." ).

Students then printed out a copy of their PowerPoint to use for practice and sent them to us. We had one or two students present their PechaKucha book talks each day over the course of a few weeks.

Short presentations build confidence

Short presentations help us meet our goals of teaching students to develop and deliver effective oral presentations, providing them with lots of practice, and enabling them to feel empowered, not overwhelmed, by the experience.

Larry Ferlazzo teaches English, social studies, and International Baccalaureate Theory of Knowledge classes to English Language Learners and mainstream students at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, California. He has written eight previous books and has won numerous awards, including the grand prize from the International Literacy Association for Technology and Reading. Visit Larry's globally recognized education resources website and follow him on Twitter @larryferlazzo.

Katie Hull Sypnieski has worked with English Language Learners for 21 years in the Sacramento City Unified School District. She currently teaches middle school English language arts and English language development at Rosa Parks K-8 School. Follow Katie on Twitter @KHullSyp.

Ferlazzo and Hull Sypnieski are coauthors of The ELL Teacher's Toolbox: Hundreds of Practical Ideas to Support Your Students (2018) from which this article is adapted. They have also co-authored The ESL/ELL Teacher's Survival Guide and Navigating the Common Core with English Language Learners, all from Jossey-Bass/Wiley.

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4 Fun Ways to Practice Short Oral Presentations

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When our book The ELL Teacher's Toolbox was published this spring, the KQED MindShift blog published an excerpt titled "How to Use Oral Presentations to Help English Language Learners Succeed." You might find it helpful to read both posts. We think our strategies for ELL students can be adapted for any group of students working to improve speaking and listening skills.